


Don't fucking analyse me, Graham.

by until_the_earth_is_free



Series: The Littlest Ships That Could (Hannibal Edition) [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Elevators, M/M, Panic Attacks, Trapped In Elevator, literally the most cliched fic you can imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:05:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1343530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/until_the_earth_is_free/pseuds/until_the_earth_is_free
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will and Brian get stuck in an elevator and things are as cliched as they sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am utterly appalled by the lack of Will/Brian in this fandom so I have decided to rectify this error through my awful fluffy fic.
> 
> ((Fear not, my Hannigram regulars, I am still working on the Demons fic!))

 

 

 

"You have to be fucking kidding me."

It was close to one in the morning and Brian was still running stupidly mundane chromatography tests on the ink that spattered the victim's writing hand.

A lot of people owned leaky pens. Big deal. When Will Graham, star pupil of the BSU, had told Jack that the victim was coerced into writing something by the killer because there was apparently no way that she had simply spilled a cartridge on her right hand of her own accord, the director had demanded that the forensics team worked on the matter until they found evidence. Since only one person was required for such a menial task, Beverly and Jimmy had announced that it was Zeller's turn to work late and scarpered like the treacherous colleagues they were.

And now Brian was sitting at the gas chromatography machine at one am, watching the results print. It was so ridiculous that he was using such a gorgeously particular and precise instrument to run a high school standard ink test for what was mostly likely an absolute waste of his time.

"Goddamnit," he groaned quietly, scanning the graph with a trained efficiency.

"What does it say?"

Jolting in his seat, Brian turned around to see Will Graham standing at the glass doorway of the lab, his coat folded over one arm as if he was about to go home. Which pissed Brian off a lot because it probably meant awkward conversation until they both left the building.

"The ink doesn't even match the brand of any of the pens in her house."

An unsaid "I told you so" hung in the asphyxiating silence between the two men.

Frustrated by his own exhaustion and the passivity of the profiler in front of him, Brian felt compelled to speak.

"It doesn't seem like real science if we are making assumptions before gathering the evidence," he commented, packing up his things to go home.

"I make my profiles using the evidence," Will replied slowly, an unfamiliar aggression marking his voice.

"Ink stains? The positioning of the victim's hand in a fist?"

"I was right though, wasn't I?" In another context, the question could have been interpreted as rhetorical but sounded like an accusation in the otherwise empty room.

Brian put his hands up in a mock surrender.

"I'm just fucking tired, okay?"

Will turned around to leave, causing Zeller to expel low sigh of relief. However, after a few moments, he looked up to see that the profiler was holding the elevator door open for him and, cursing that he was to spend another minute with that godawful savant that night, he grabbed his coat and bag and hurried into the cramped box.

~O~

Will was careful not to catch the analyst's eye as the door closed and the elevator started to ascend.

But he didn't really have to try hard because, a few moments after the elevator started to move, the lights went out, enveloping the two men in darkness, and the box stopped with an abrupt halt.

"Shit," Will swore, groping the wall of the elevator to try to find the alarm button. After an unsuccessful few seconds, he patted his pockets for his phone to try to find a light but, unfortunately, his phone was most likely at the bottom of his briefcase.

"Zeller?" he called out, feeling very conscious that his voice was probably a lot louder than he intended. "Do you have a phone?"

Silence.

"Zeller?"

It was very uncharacteristic for the man to be silent and Will, unable to see or hear him, felt extraordinarily helpless in his ability to gage the other's thoughts.

There were a few breathy pants and the sounds of some rummaging of clothes before Will felt something hard hit his calf. Bending down to pick up the phone, he asked,

"Zeller, are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" exclaimed an unfamiliar trembling voice from somewhere a yard away from Will's feet. "Just get us out of here, okay?"

"We haven't got any service," remarked Will. "But I'll see if there's a button we can press to call security."

There wasn't an answer from the floor so the profiler simply shone the dim phone light across the display of buttons, before spotting a yellow bell, which he pressed.

A crackly voice over the intercom announced that security had been alerted and that they should be freed in half an hour to forty-five minutes.

"Fuck!" said the voice that was not quite Zeller but was much more familiar now that it was spouting profanities.

Then there came a series of bumps and scuffle noises, like the analyst was attacking something, although there was honestly nothing in the elevator to hit except the walls and Will himself.

Recognising the symptoms of some sort of anxiety, Will said, "maybe you could try breathing?"

"Thanks, Graham, for your advice," the voice spat. "I will be sure to consider it while I stop fucking breathing."

Wow, he sure was a crappy psychologist if he empathised better with serial killers than with a colleague with claustrophobia.

Settling down in the corner next to Brian so that their hips were right up against each other, he could feel the analyst's legs jiggling in nervousness and feel the rapid heartbeat pulsate aggressively through the layers of clothing between them.

When Will was small, he used to get panic attacks at the smallest things and his father, not entirely trained in anything except boat mechanics, had no idea how to help the distressed boy in front of him and so would gently place his hand against his son's back until the feelings subsided.

Zeller's back was presently against a wall, so that was not really an option, so Will merely placed a friendly hand on his colleague's shuddering knee. He felt a small jolt in surprise at the gesture but neither man pulled away.

Slowly, the trembling subsided.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary? Plot? Hahaha what?

 

 

 

 

"So, when did you first notice your claustrophobia?"

He didn't really expect a proper answer, just an agitated response that would snap through the asphyxiating elevator silence.

"Don't fucking analyse me, Graham."

Zeller never disappointed.

"When I was young, I had a lot of anxiety around big crowds," Will said, conversationally in his desperation to break through the lonely darkness between the two men. "I suppose it's the same kind of feeling for you."

Zeller gave out a puff of a sigh, which Will, starved for emotional information, filtered through his mind's empathic processing centres, sucking out every fragment of feeling he could sense in that sound.

"I once went to a fair with my dad and I couldn't even make it out of the car," he continued. "But, uh, what I found terrifying emotionally, you probably find distressing physically. You know, the whole over-stimulation, it's all a bit-"

At this moment, Will's hand was thrown off the leg it had been resting on as Zeller pulled in his knees to his chest, completely separating himself from the profile next to him.

In hindsight, Will considered the fact that a better empath would have backed off when the obvious signs of stress were being radiated from the analyst. A better empath would have probably not have done anything that Will had deemed it necessary to do.

However, deprived of sensory information but still in the same room as another person, Will's ability to empathise was extremely compromised and, upon reflection, he may have been misconstruing some of his own feelings as ones experienced by Zeller. He was really very tired and confused.

This may or may not have justified leaning over and planting his mouth firmly on the analyst's shaking lips.

There were a few seconds of sudden stillness and a silence that Will was unfamiliarly comfortable with.

Then,

"what the fuck."

Zeller's words were shaking despite the fact that his lips had stopped quivering the moment they had been collided with by Will's.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry, I-" the profiler stammered, but neither man had pulled away and their faces were still only inches apart. He could still feel Brian's breath gently imprint on his mouth.

Will was usually very talented at making excuses. It was a side effect of having so many neural connections. But, in that elevator, it felt like all of his sensitised, delicately connected neurones had been saturated and had reached the consistency of stodgy English pudding.

He felt another of Zeller's sighs puff against his face.

"Shut up."

And then he couldn't even talk if he tried because Brian's lips were back on his.

~O~

"Will, could I please talk with you for a second?" Jack asked, far too early the next day as he was passing the profiler in the corridor. Entering the director's office, the older man seemed very uncomfortable, which was odd, considering they were in his office.

"Will," he started, heaving his chest with effort. "You're an adult and any decisions you make in your personal life are absolutely your business. I just want to talk to you to make sure that they won't conflict with your work."

"If this is about my mental state, I-" Will began in the exasperated voice he reserved for Jack-moments such as this.

"No, Will. I'm talking about the fact that any elevators in the Bureau are obligated to have night vision cameras installed by federal law."

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh so yeah. I'm thinking of adding an Alana/Beverly and an Alana/Bedelia fic to this little series of mine. Any other Hannibal ship suggestions are welcome!
> 
> Bug me at hotdadwillgraham.tumblr.com or twitter.com/hannibalzester !

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued if people actually read chapter one.
> 
> I know absolutely NOTHING about forensics except the tiny bit in GCSE Chemistry about gas-liquid chromatography so that's how that happened.


End file.
